For me, this means that I need to really bust ass over the next few weeks, and get as many commissions finished as I can. If you can believe it, I’m STILL not caught up on commissions that I got during CTRF’s fall show last year! I’ve been working hard all winter, but there just hasn’t been enough time to get everything done — one of the downsides to still spending over 60 hours a week (between working and commuting) at a day job, and then trying to get all of my sewing done in the evenings and on weekends.

Doing costume coordination or design for shows means, of course, that I’ll have even less time over the next few weeks to work on commissions — not to mention building stock for my sales tent at the show itself! Luckily I have a fabulous assistant who can help with some of that. At the same time, though, doing these shows is so valuable to me — so many of my designs have originally been born out of character needs at shows I’ve costumed! For instance.

The Alan A Dale Coat was originally designed for, of course, Alan A Dale. He was a character at the Robin Hood Faire at Hammond Castle many years ago, and the idea was to have him really stand out from the other characters — but in a medieval way. I wanted him to be a medieval rock star. This style of coat and hat is actually drawn from history, but is a style about a hundred years later than any of the other costumes in the show, and so made Alan seem like a trend-setter.

The Miniature Tricorn was first created for Agnes Bonnet, at the New England Pirate Faire in 2009. She was the wife of a pirate who was mostly in the pirating trade because she thought it would be a lark. Really, they were quite wealthy without the need to be capturing ships or hunting down treasure. So I decided that the perfect topper to her Colonial gown was a tiny, ridiculous, Marie Antoinette-esque tricorn hat.

The Uriens Vest was one I created the first year I costumed the Connecticut Renaissance Faire, back in 2005. It was for — you guessed it! — King Uriens. I needed some kind of “topper” to his outfit, something medieval, but with a bit of flow and richness to it, something that said to the audience that he wasn’t just another Medieval Guy, he was an IMPORTANT Medieval Guy. So I created this vest, with a full skirt and swirling trim details, which could easily be worn over a pants and long tunic outfit to give it that little something extra that proclaimed Uriens’ status.